from Persistent to Consistent

Additional progress measures…

I’m quite a fan of statistics since I’ve realised it’s difficult to progress without having a clear view of how you’re doing.

Going over my results I realised a few things…

This week’s results have beaten all of my previous ‘wins’ in the last 21 losing weeks

Last week and this week were achieved from 4 and 2 trades respectively

I missed a large number of profitable opportunities in this short period

While I have been keeping track of the time I’ve spent on learning this subject so far (354 hrs) that’s no longer enough and it’s becoming a slightly irrelevant measurement.

So I’ll be adding another target which is to make 5 good trades a week. Now it’s possible that doesn’t sound like a lot but I don’t want to put undue pressure on myself to enter crappy positions.

It’s also a somewhat limiting factor that I can only concentrate 100% on the European session open until 08:45 am because after that I need to be in my car 😉

However, I reckon this is an achievable target which will help me focus on getting better at trading through actual practice, especially now that I’ve got access to a set of tools which I’ve been successful with. Practising to improve at something is actually fun if you’ve got to a stage where you’re not continually throwing cash out of the window! Hooray! 🙂

So after next week I’ll add number of winning/losing trades to the results page and see how I get on with that.

True, but seriously how f@$ked is that bloke? In all the pictures of him he just looks relieved frankly. How do you start a conversation with your management to admit that? “Ummm…. I did a bad?” Unbelievable…

Thinking about your early morning timescale you may want to check out eur/$. There is often a move about 7.00am as though traders are trying to ‘position’ things for the 8.00am UK open when a further move occurs. Not massive but often in the 20 pip area which means using a timescale short enough to see it ie 5 min or 450 tick.
Check it out for a few days. It’s a scalping opportunity so may not fit with a fundemental approach but worth a look see.

I’m mostly looking at EURUSD and GBPUSD so have caught a couple of these moves on a 5 minute timeframe

The first question I’m trying to answer each morning is ‘What’s going on?’ based on a combined technical/fundamental view. If a number of these ideas mesh to back each other up then it’s definitely a trade to enter which has some potential.

I’m considering a double lot entry to catch the initial (20pts or so) move to bank some money then letting the rest run till there’s a ‘proper’ reversal rather than just a retracement but this is outside my risk/comfort zone at the moment 😉

I think one thing about EURUSD at the times I mentioned is it seems disconnected from fundementals. It seems to be a feature of the big players trading tactics so gives us the opportunity to ride on there backs for a quick gain in the early hours.

Your 5 min timescale is just about the same as the 450 tick I use so should show the moves quite well.

Another thing which helped me was reading that of all the forex pairs EUROUSD is prone to ‘backfilling’ ie the price moves in one direction then comes back 15/20 points where orders are waiting which fill then the move in the original direction continues. This can make it difficult to differentiate between a reversal and a retracement so I’ve become more willing to take 20 pips then reenter at the first sign that a backfilling has taken place.

Forexpeacearmy do a good weekly and daily analysis and video by Sive Morton which is worth signing up to (no cost).